The Wolves of Westeros
by EscapismReigns
Summary: A short, dark drabble piece on the future of the Starks in Westeros.


**The Wolves of Westeros**

 **Based off GRRM's work. Because I was indignant on Stark's behalf. An incredibly overused plot, yes, but I hope to put my own spin on it. Note everything is not necessarily factual to the universe.**

 **Can be seen as a side-piece to "Little Dove's Lament".**

* * *

"Here they come." The anticipatory grin of the cooper beside Gendry makes him perk up.

"Who?"

"The Wolves." Gendry thinks at first he means the soldiers marching north under the banner, but no. They are here.  
There... A tight knot of riders surrounded on all sides by soldiers bearing grey and white; black and red.

The Wolf of the Wall is at the front, proud nose set below harsh grey eyes. He has left his Wall, but the blue tinged scar running threefold down his cheek attests to the fact that he will never leave the icy battlefield, despite his oath now being rendered void.

(The weathered lines on his face and those unsympathetic, knowing eyes hardly fit the blue rose embroidered on his coat).

At his left hand, there is the Wolf of the Vale, her copper hair slashing the Winter snow around them. Gendry has heard that the fancy knights in their armour bow to her as if she were the rightful Lord of the Vale, instead of the whelp inside her womb. To Gendry she seems like one of those fairytale princesses, skin flawless and manners demure. Yet it was she who commanded her Hawks to lop off old Littlefinger's head, and watched as it bounced out the Moon Door.

(The Spider's birds have flown his nest in favour for her honeyed words).

At the rear, there is the Wildling Wolf. He is barely out of his childhood, yet his death toll has been higher than men four times his age. The boy who survived the cannibals is quite the popular story, and his men boast of it in their war chant. All the North wants to see is the long dead Young Wolf returned to them, to mend their broken hearts and avenge their broken bodies.

(The bannermen pretend they don't notice his vicious glee on the battlefield, or the begging of his foes before he tears out their throats. Gendry has heard it quietly said that he took to Roose Bolton and his bastard with Bolton's own flaying knife in the crypts of Winterfell, the gore indistinguishable in his Tully hair.)

There are curious mutters at the sight of the Wolf of the Forest. He holds a different reputation to his siblings. They say he has become the head of the Old Religion. They say he knows all – a thousand eyes and one. More and more wargs congregate to him by the day, and his greenseers stand by their fortress of heart trees Beyond the Wall. Gendry can't go past a heart tree without seeing those eyes, hearing those whispers.

(They also say he is peaceful and kind, but Gendry has seen him sing his otherworldly songs with white eyes, and the enemy turn upon their own swords and spears and brothers.)

Gendry finally brings himself to look upon the last Stark. She who has many names, and many faces. The Wolf of Braavos.

(The howls of her direwolf and the wolf horde as they descended upon the Twins and the Westerlands still haunt his dreams).

Gendry has been to many cities, and in the streets and slums, the taverns, brothels, and ship-docks, they worship her as the Stranger incarnate. Come to exact justice on corrupt high-borns and people of the Faith. Maybe that is why the Septs fear her, smear her name, call her Dragon-whore and heretic and many other things beside. She laughs at them.

This family seem to have ridden right out of legend. (Only Gendry and Hotpie still remember that fierce girl, all bark and no bite with her skinny sword, to compare to this dead-eyed womanling.).

Gendry wonders how much of themselves the Starks sacrificed to become legends. But tragedies make for the most entertaining stories, after all, and the Stark's story is one that has been told again and again.

The faint calls of their direwolves sound in the distance. Everyone around him now has those cursed words upon their lips, as if it were a prayer. Those blood-soaked House words splattered across that stiff banner.

 _Winter is Coming. Winter. Is. Coming. WINTER. IS. COMING._

The chant rattles through the air. Gendry can't bring himself to say it; those words have never brought him anything but pain.  
He slips back among the blank sea of faces.


End file.
